WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2019) Brazil has failed to care for the health of some 500 unaccompanied Venezuelan children who crossed into the country since May, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a press release.
"The humanitarian emergency is driving children to flee Venezuela alone, many looking for food or health care," HRW senior Brazil researcher Cesar Munoz said in the report on Thursday. "While Brazilian authorities are making a great effort to accommodate hundreds of Venezuelans crossing daily into Brazil, they are failing to give these children the protection they desperately need."
From May 1 through November 21, 2019, 529 unaccompanied Venezuelan children crossed the border into the Brazilian state of Roraima, the report said, citing the Brazilian Federal Public Defender's Office.
Without a legal guardian, unaccompanied minors cannot enroll in school or get public health care, and no system exists to track and support unaccompanied children after their entry interview, the report said.
A collapsed economy, hyperinflation and severe shortages of food and medicine have forced more than 4 million Venezuelan refugees to seek relief in neighboring nations in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the UN.
